DISCLAIMER:Don't own anything associated with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it.
RATING: T – Teen (language and adult issues)
PAIRINGS: GSR & Yo!Bling pre-established in previous fics of this timeline.
SPOILERS: Sequel to "Displacement" and "Transitions"
SUMMARY: Everything is changing around Nick Stokes. Can he deal with it, and how it will affect him in the end?

A/N: Let's see if this one doesn't get everyone all riled up. :D And I have to admit, I wasn't really sure about one of the "paragraphs" so I had to ask a friend to lay down her morality stick for a little bit and make sure I took the potty mouth as far as I needed to for the desired effect. Now I need to try and remember where I put her morality stick before she goes off on a few people.

REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.

Chapter 28
09:00 – 2006.12.12
UNLV Earth Science Building: Offices

On the elevator ride up to the offices, Nick triple checked that he had all his ducks in a row to limit the amount of time he would have to bother the Doc. All night, he could not help thinking he had been damn lucky to catch the Doc in a decent mood before, and knowing he was going to mess up and say or do the wrong thing, which could potentially change her good mood to bad in an instant put even more pressure on him.

Once he finally reached the door bearing her name, he took a steeling breath and knocked confidently, even though he felt anything but. "What?" That was the first indication he was sunk.

He cautiously poked his head in through the door and found the Doc struggling to move around the room without her crutch. As he brought his gaze up, he saw that her left arm was in a sling and his whole mind exploded with the implications of that sight.

"Wha-… Oh, it's you… What d'you need?" She continued to hobble around the room as she tucked folders into her sling. When he had not spoken yet, she looked back at him and he was instantly sorry for it, because he knew she saw the shocked expression on his face. "Great," came her cynical reply to his state. "Look, I don't have time for this… Either tell me what you need, or get out of the way."

Nick stepped into the room and fumbled through the words, "Oh, well, I ah, wanted to ah, maybe talk to you about this ah-"

She put the things and her briefcase into the basket on her scooter and then she said, "You know what, I really don't have time for this… Talk to Boone or Sandi, but I need to get out of here." She settled down onto the scooter and looked back up at Nick. "Are you going to move, or what?"

"Wait a minute… I need to know somethin'…" He stared down at her and finally found his voice again. "Is that," he pointed at the sling, "because of me?"

"You've got to be kidding me, right?" He was completely confused by her response, but the next thing to come out of her mouth totally floored him. "Get over yourself, cowboy. The whole world does not revolve around you. Now get the hell out of my way, before your self-centered ass makes me late."

He had no choice but to move, unless he wanted to be knocked down in the rampaging woman's path. Nick was left in a stupor as he tried to process what had just happened before him.

When the stupor finally broke, it was because of anger. Anger at having been dismissed as nothing more than an annoyance. Anger at having been put into a category he did not belong in. Anger at once again being insulted for nothing more than being a caring person. His anger gave him strength and light to his feet as he ran out to the elevator to confront the infuriating professor.

Sliding to a stop beside the doors and throwing out his arm to hold the elevator doors he had finally reached his limit. "Where the hell do you get off saying that to me?"

"I th-"

"NO! This time you're gonna listen to me for a change. Just 'cause I was worried about having hurt you, or because I ain't the kinda guy to leave somebody to the elements if I can help it, or on account of being raised as a gentleman, doesn't mean you have the right to rip me a new one whenever you damn well feel like it. I don't give a damn what you've been through, it doesn't give you the right to treat people like fleas sent to irritate you on a regular basis. So, I think I deserve at least the civility it would take to give me a couple minutes of your time and a decent answer to my questions." Nick was huffing with the exertion of having said more in under two minutes than he probably had in the last week.

"Are you done?" The Doc's jaw was set and she barely moved her lips when she spoke.

"For now, yeah." Nick nodded, but stood his ground.

She motored forward a little, forcing him away from the door before she began to speak. "The world does not revolve around your weak-ass case, nor does it seek or need your pathetic approval to continue to spin on its axis. In fact, the world doesn't give a rat's ass what you think, how you were raised or whatever you fucking deem necessary to do. The world has much bigger problems than whatever stick's been shoved up your ass, Mr. Stokes. And if it isn't too much to ask, I have a plane to catch so that I can attempt to work on some of those real problems that exist in the world. And the thing that gives me the right to speak to people anyway I damn well please, is because I fucking well earned it… Earned it by spending a lifetime dealing with stuck up, condescending, self-centered, self-serving, prejudiced, overgrown frat boys that never learned to grow up every day of my fucking life as they try to destroy everything I hold dear and the future of this whole fucking planet! So, yeah, I get to call a fucking pig a fucking pig whenever I good and goddamn well feel like it! So, you can take your high and mighty bullshit notions and shove 'em back up your ass where they belong!" The door to the elevators closed as she rolled back inside leaving Nick to stand, once again, in a stupor as he reeled from the rant that had just been leveled against him.

He was still standing there when someone tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, man… You okay?" He slowly turned to see the worried face of one of the professor's assistants. "Dude, you look like you went ten rounds with Tyson. Must've gotten the full treatment, huh?"

Nick was barely able to register what was being said to him by the man. It took him a moment to process just who the man was. Blonde shaggy hair, tall, tan, dressed like a beach bum, oh yeah, that's Boone. "Oh hey, Boone."

"Oh yeah, Dude… You got both barrels, didn't ya?" Boone shook his head and chuckled as he took the folders from Nick. "C'mon, man… I'll buy ya cup of coffee and we can go through your stuff and see what we can do before Sandi comes back up."

Nick followed the man into the Doc's office and then sat down at the table while Boone poured them both some coffee. Boone handed him the mug and started slipping through the pages of Nick's reports as he stood there with his own mug of coffee. "Wow… Whoever's doing this really knows their stuff."

As he took a sip from the mug, Nick had finally broken the last holds of the stupor. "Sorry, what?"

"Oh, I was just sayin'… Whoever's runnin' those drugs really knows their stuff, man… They're droppin' right along the flight path to McCarran, far enough out in the desert that Nellis ain't paying attention, and in a rec area that's abandoned at night with almost no artificial lighting in the whole park, with just enough open ground to land and light out without anybody knowin' about it." Boone shook his head as he looked down at the diagrams.

Nick took out his note pad and started making notes from the man's assessment. "So, you think the plane this guy parachuted from was on the way to McCarran?"

"Oh yeah… There's a ton of commercial air traffic up from Mexico and South America, so it's only logical there'd be drug traffic, too." Boone finally sat down and started digging into the reports.

"How do you know about the air traffic?"

Boone shrugged off the question by saying, "We have to track flight patterns over the park for noise and wind variances for the data."

"We also help monitor air emissions to keep the international commercial traffic on the up and up for the EPA." Nick instantly stood up when he heard the feminine voice behind him. "Thanks, Nick." She turned to Boone and asked, "Any more of that?"

"Oh, yeah." Boone jumped up as Nick returned to his seat and Sandi took the other man's place. "She got out okay?"

"Yeah, I had Philly Andretti run her out to McCarran. So, she should have just enough time to scream at the TSA agents." Sandi smiled at their private joke as Boone laughed. "It really isn't just you, Nick. She just seems to enjoy it more when you're the target."

"Gee thanks." Nick was brought right back to the confrontation at the elevator.

"Seriously, Dude. You are not alone in that one…" Boone sat down at the table and slid a mug of coffee over to Sandi and then continued. "Doc's just got all this rage, ya know, and it don't take a lot to set her off under the right circumstances, or the wrong ones, depending on your perspective."

"And there's not a person on this team that hasn't incurred the Wrath of the Beast at least once or twice. But at the same time, there's also not a person here that wouldn't lay down their life for her in a heartbeat. R.J. may be rough around the edges, but her heart is in the right place and the work she's doing is just so vital to human existence. Plus, there's the whole added benefit of working for one of the leading minds in physical science in the world." Sandi and Boone shared a smile and then she added, "Besides, the fireworks shows are kind of entertaining when they're happening to someone else."

"Well, when you put it that way… You're welcome for the show." Nick was trying to get passed the experience, but there was still something bugging him. "Can I ask you a question?"

"I think I already know what it is…" Sandi turned to look him in the eye for a moment when she said, "She had a scope yesterday afternoon to clean up some loose tissue. Been scheduled for weeks."

"Seriously?" Sandi nodded to him and he felt a wave of relief wash over him. The guilt that rapt his soul at seeing her in that sling had been weighing heavy on him. Even the thought of being responsible for hurting her physically was making him sick. With the weight of his guilt lifted he felt compelled to ask, "So, what was so earth shattering she had to unload on me today?"

"Oh… She walked into a congressional summons first thing this morning, with orders to appear before the Senate Subcommittee by four this afternoon, Eastern Time." Sandi tilted her head to the side as she started leafing through the report, and then added, "So, you can bet there's a Federal Marshal gonna get more than an earful when she lands at National."

"They can just do that?" Nick was confused as to how something like that could happen.

"When you're a director at the EPA, they can tell you where and when to be any time they want to." Nick looked up at Sandi in shock. "What?"

"Director?"

"Yeah, you think you can run this kind of research project as a simple college professor?" Sandi chuckled at Nick's surprise. "Hell, I teach the few classes she has in the curriculum, she just writes the graduate program and has final approval over Master's Degree thesis submissions. They only have her work through the university so they can ride the coattails of her research."

"I guess I just don't know a lot about the whole academic world." Nick realized in that moment that if any of the evidence in the case were to come into question, the D.A. was going to want the Doc to act as an expert witness. And that was the first joy he had gotten from the day, because it would be highly entertaining to be a fly on that wall. He almost felt sorry for whatever A.D.A drew the case. "So, what's her bag at the EPA?"

"She's their chief geologist, and runs the erosion studies for the whole agency. And if they called her in on such short notice, it usually means they have a big fish making waves in congress about the new requirements she wrote for the construction industry." Sandi continued talking to Nick as she studied the case files.

"But still, isn't it too much to expect same day service on a summons from across the country?" Nick was still confused about the perceived urgency of the summons.

"Well, it looks like they've been trying to notify her since Friday, but she'd been out at the cabin all weekend. So, when she didn't answer the messages, they sent a Federal Marshal out to serve her with the summons this morning. Needless to say, she was less than pleased. In fact, you should thank that guy, because he got the full blast of her rage… I think you just got the leftovers." Sandi and Boone both chuckled at that one. Sandi then handed Boone one of the pages from the report for him to review.

Even Nick had to chuckle at the news. "Well, then remind me to never cross paths with her before she's let it out."

Boone got up from the table and went to one of the binders on the shelf in the back of the room as he said, "Well, I think I can help with that." He flipped through a few pages, made a couple notes on Nick's report and then repeated the process once more before he continued, "Because we just nailed your timeline, Dude."

"Wait… Are you serious?" Nick took the sheet from Boone and looked over the notes in disbelief. "Can you back this up?"

"Sure, I'll just make you a copy of the data disk, and you should be set." Boone walked to the computer terminal and started making the disk.

"I'm gonna need some kind of report from you guys to hand over to the PD tonight… Would that be possible?"

Sandi got up and went to the other terminal as she took the report from Nick and said, "No sweat… Have it in ten minutes, on letterhead and you can just sit back and enjoy your coffee. I figure it's the least we can do after your roasting."